School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Date: Jan 27 2009
Major: Fine Arts - Painting/Sculpture/Photography/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
I am actually the parent of a student currently enrolled at SAIC. She transferred as a sophomore. The experience has been mixed at best. The facilities are amazing, but undergraduates are not given any studio space or safe place to store their work in progress, so this discourages large scale work. My daughter has had hundreds of $ worth of supplies stolen. There is a lot of busy work, fine if you don't know what your art is about and need to experiment a lot, but frustrating if you are clear on your vision. Also, not nearly enough classes on the realities of making a life and a living as an artist.

Socially, it is the pits. The students almost all smoke, so if your child doesn't, he or she has two choices: become addicted to tobacco, or become a social outcast. My daughter chose the latter. I am proud of her for it, but she feels very lonely and isolated.

There are way too many kids there who equate being an artist with wearing black and hating your parents. Actual originality and intellectual curiosity are surprisingly rare.

Also, the school employs artists in the accounting department. Can you see a problem looming?

Twice my daughter has been unable to register for classes because her account was frozen due to an accounting mistake. The woman in the office, when I spoke with her on the phone, sounded like she was missing most of her brain cells. Oh, and watch out for the health insurance charges. The school charges everyone, and it is up to you to show proof of health insurance, only half the time the system forgets to record that you provided it. (See problem above.)

All in all, maybe worth it for graduate school, but you can get a fine education elsewhere for a lot less money. the museum is amazing, though, and having access to the vaults is worth a lot.